Daily Archives: Monday, July 13, 2009

OMG…Something Is Coming!

By | July 13, 2009 at 10:45 pm | 9 comments

Perhaps you have or haven’t noticed, but for the past 10 days or so, if you visit the ANN website, view it in it’s default theme, and then mouse over the left side of the page, you see a black silhoutte pop up on it with a question mark on it.  When you click on it, it takes you to a crazy looking site called omgitscoming.com.

The site features a rotating silhouette picture (they’re on their fifth version) and a ticker counting down to noon on this upcoming Thursday, which is registration pick up day for Otakon, by the way.  The site has no HTML comments and has been registered with a service to keep the real registrant’s identity private.

Thus far, the five images on the site have been the following:

silhoutte silhoutte_2 silhoutte_3
silhoutte_4 silhoutte_5

Whether these things have anything to do with whatever is going to be announced, who knows.  About the only thing we can (possibly) assume is that it’s anime related, as the add is on ANN’s website.  But what about anime – a con announcement, a new license announcement, etc. – much less by whom is completely unknown.

There have been some theories floating around that it could be an announcement for Kannagi, as the Kannagi fan site has a somewhat similar pixelated photo on it’s page with a note to check back for a “special message,” also on this Thursday.  Also, there is the fact that It’s OMG (oh my god) and Nagi is a goddess, so there would some level of hinting there if it turns out to be that.  Of course, if it’s Kannagi, what could the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th image possibly have to do with it?

Update:

I should note that it is counting down to noon in the timezone correlating with UTC-0700, which is Pacific time (I think originally it didn’t have a time zone set).  This signifies a couple of things: a) it’s probably not Otakon related.  b) it’s probably not related to a Japanese company.  c) It’s probably not related to Media Blasters (NYC), Funimation (Texas), ADV (Texas), or Right Stuf (Iowa).  The only major anime companies based on the west coast that I’m aware of are Viz and Bandai.  I guess I should also note that Geneon Entertainment – what’s left of it anyway – is also based in California.

Update 2

And as soon as I post this, ANN puts up a new skin, and the old question mark man is gone, even if you switch back to the old design.  Odd that whoever is pulling that stunt would suddenly stop advertising it on ANN 3 days before whatever announcement is going to happen.

Eden of the East – Anime Review

By | July 13, 2009 at 11:46 am | No Comments

eden_east_logo

The Essentials

Name: Eden of the East
Genre: Mystery, Comedy, Drama
Episodes: 11
Aired: April 9, 2009 – June 18, 2009
Based On: N/A
Director: Kenji Kamiyama
Produced By: Production I.G.
US Distribution By: Not Licensed

Cast

Character Japanese Cast English Cast (N/A)
Saki Morimi: Saori Hayami
Akira Takizawa: Ryohei Kimura
Juiz: Sakiko Tamagawa
Satoshi Osugi: Takuya Eguchi
Kazuomi Hirasawa: Motoyuki Kawahara
Mikuru “Micchon” Katsuhara: Ayaka Saito
Onee: Kimiko Saito
Haruo Kasuga: Hayato Taya
Daiju Mononobe: Atsushi Miyauchi
Kuroha Shiratori: Rei Igarashi

Review

Eden of the East is a mystery series regarding a man identifying himself as Akira Takizawa who turns up naked in front of the White House, and in the process saves a Japanese tourist there, Saki, who had gotten in trouble by throwing something over the White House fence.  However, Akira has no memories of the past and is in possession of only two things: a gun and a mysterious cellphone which says he has ¥8.2 billion ($82 million) on his phone and is answered by a girl named Juiz who appears to be able to do anything – for a price.

Soon, Akira finds out that he is a “Selecao” – one of 12 people seemingly randomly chosen by a man only known as “Mr. Outside” and given 10 billion yen with instructions to use it to save Japan.  However, only one Selecao – the one who is actually able to save Japan – can survive the game, with all the others being taken out by “The Supporter.”  The mystery deepens even further when the possibility that the Selecao are connected to the “Careless Monday” event that took place 3 months earlier, in which 10 missiles hit Japanese cities, but somehow no one was killed.

Eden of the East is done in an unusual style, at least based on most other shows I’ve seen, and thus can’t really be fitted very well into any pre-existing show “templates” out there.  I think this serves the show well as that allows it to keep the viewer on their toes as Akira delves deeper and deeper into the mystery of who the Selecao are and what involvement he’s had with them in the past.  The show picks up momentum right away and continues it all the way through to the end of the series – though, even though some major story lines are resolved in the series proper, the answers to some of the bigger questions are left for two sequel theatrical films.  Despite this, the series is still largely able to stand on it’s own even without the two sequel movies.

I think perhaps the biggest strength of this show is it’s characters, especially Akira, who has to deal with having to piece together who he is, what he has done, and why he has done it.  However, many of the other characters are also rather compelling to watch as well.

There appears to be very little to dislike about this show.  It has great animation, great music.  As I noted above, it seems to have a compelling story that it’s able to keep up all the way through the series.  It also mixes it’s comedy and drama aspects very well, and I don’t really recall any place where I thought the transition between comedy-centric parts of the show and drama-centric parts of the show was awkward.  Overall, I think this is an excellent show which many, many people could enjoy.

Scores

Story: 5/5
Animation: 5/5
Music: 5/5
English Dubs: N/A

Overall: 5/5

First Watched: April – June 2009
Do I Own: No
Do I Recommend: Yes